Painful Memories
by TheDeep
Summary: This is an "overhaul" of sorts of my former "9/11 is 9-1-1" Chapter Seven. Since I left the story unattended for so long, I decided to just do a retake of it and work over Chapter Seven to leave it as a one-shot for the 2013 year. This features Mac and a woman and is set at the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan and is a short little story about how they share their pain from 9/11.


**Alright, seeing as I slacked off horribly on writing the actual full story, this is an overhaul of the former "9/11 is 9-1-1" Chapter Seven to make it a little one-shot for 2013's memorial of 9/11 that I started last year. I didn't feel I was doing the overall story justice, so I wanted to make something of this chapter and felt it could do well standing by itself as it's own little tribute.**

**ooOOoo**

Twelve years sure did a lot to a person. Mac should know. Twelve years since the world seemed to literally crash down around him. He'd taken the full day off for two major reasons: a really late shift that had dragged in to early this morning, and... just the simple fact of what day it was.

September 11th, 2013. Twelve years had changed him. Highs and lows had shaped quite the story for his career in the NYPD as their lead Crime Scene Investigator. But today wasn't about all of that. It was about one morning that had entirely changed his life in the matter of mere minutes. And it wasn't just for him, but more like hundreds of thousands of people. World-wide. 9/11 had forever changed the US, and Mac would bet it affected almost everyone world-wide in one way or another.

He sighed softly as he stepped inside the memorial. Peaceful silence greeted him warmly; the grass was green and the lone Survivor Tree was the only tree still entirely green. Some of the other trees had started to lose their leaves in anticipation of the cold weather Manhattan experienced throughout the fall and winter.

The South Pool was the first thing Mac caught in his sight. Along the first two sides he saw, he knew 441 names were carved in to the bronze. 441 first responders that had lost their lives. Mac knew very well he could just as well have been one of them on that day. He would've done it in a heartbeat. All of those men and women had lost their lives performing their sworn duty, which Mac knew as well as anyone else that had been around for the day and had lived to tell the tale.

He followed the gray sidewalks, which had an air of beauty to it for an unexplainable reason, north towards the shadow of the Freedom Tower, which loomed high over the North Pool.

Time after time of walking this very path led him to one side of the breathtaking waterfalls and he found her name with an ease that had become an instinct.

His first reaction was an uncontrollable urge to run his hands along the intricate letters. It was engraved with care, just like the hundreds of others, and in all capital letters.

_CLAIRE TAYLOR_

A few months working with Piper Labs had been part of his private mission to make a memory of this tragic day be a part of others. And finally he had to look away, fighting the tears he already felt forming in his eyes.

He couldn't help it. Here… in the footprints of the former North Tower from the majestic twins that had been such an icon on the skyline of Manhattan…

Here it was okay to cry. It was okay to lose control of the emotions and just break down, even though it was totally in the public.

"I'm so sorry."

The voice was soft… a soft whisper, and he easily detected the same grief he felt under the surface. He opened his eyes to see a woman with dark hair standing beside him.

"It's not your fault…" he said. And they both looked beyond the bronze to the waterfalls that cascaded down to the center, which seemed to be a gaping black hole. Yet… it wasn't frightening. It was rather soothing. "It's none of our faults, and it wasn't theirs either," he murmured, looking back to the name he knew so well. He could still see her laughing at him after he'd fallen in a snow drift that one year when they lived in Chicago…

The woman beside him nodded. She had by now placed a hand on his shoulder and Mac, without questioning the gesture, put an arm around her shoulders.

She was a total stranger to him, but she felt familiar to him for a reason he didn't know.

She laid her head against his shoulder and Mac sighed softly. "You lost your wife?" she asked.

He nodded. "Claire… Her name was Claire," he said softly, looking back to the letters on the bronze that shone softly bright in the gathering darkness. "What about you?" he asked, looking at the woman.

She took in a deep, shaky breath. "My husband and his friend… both firefighters. His name was John… John and Anthony," she said. She sounded like she was choking on the words and she buried her face in Mac's shoulder as warm tears fled down her cheeks.

"Shhh, shhh… It's okay…," Mac murmured, pulling her closer to him with his arm still around her shoulders and not trying to fight the tears anymore. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to block out the memory of being in the precinct that morning and being so desperate to have Claire be okay and back at his side. "I'm so sorry…"

And a plane roared overhead, soaring over the Freedom Tower as Mac and the woman stood at the railing along the North Pool.

Nothing would ever fully heal this pain they shared, and both of them knew it. That fact was what Mac believed brought them to act so open to each other…

Nothing could ever compare to the magnitude of loss they and others experienced and now lived with every day. One group's views had forever changed the lives of thousands. And that was something neither Mac nor the woman – not to mention hundreds, or maybe even thousands of others – would ever, ever forget.


End file.
